Andra Wisnu, Jakarta – The police and the general public are not ready to be partners in establishing community policing, with the former still lacking accountability and tending to act above the law, a study from the University of Indonesia (UI) has revealed.
In the study, The Potential of Community Policing in Urban-Based Societies, the 400 respondents in Depok and Bekasi, south and east of Jakarta, considered the police an overly dominant institution, due to the lack of any control mechanism.
"For instance, the study shows the public has no idea how to check on how many cases the police are handling, or whether the police have made any follow-up on reports," Kemal Dermawan, a criminologist from UI and the main researcher in the study, said Friday in Depok.
"Furthermore, the police also lack the initiative to announce how these cases are progressing, either because they feel they don't have to or because they fear it would tarnish their image. "Personally, I think it's both," he added.
The study is a response to a police system introduced nearly four years ago, called community policing.
The program, sponsored by the Japanese government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), aims at demilitarizing the police force in Indonesia. The National Police were only separated from the military in 1998.
The study also shows that the institution that became a foundation for the program, the Police-Community Partnership Forum (FKPM), has instead served to disrupt it, as its militaristic style is deemed unfriendly to the public, and that the police continue dominating police-community forums.
"A by-product of this style of policing is more venues for corruption, because only a few members of the community get close to the community police," Kemal said.
Despite these snags, the study also shows the police have all the necessary regulations and knowledge to conduct effective community policing, Kemal pointed out, adding the police-community relationship remained strong, as both parties understood their need for each other.
He urged the police to loosen up in conducting community policing, saying that regional police needed to strengthen their watch over the district police, because the latter served as the first gateway in repairing the police's image.
"The aim of community policing is to create a sense of equality between the police and the community. This has yet to be seen, because the police are ignorant of people's rights," Kemal said.
The study supports an earlier statement by National Police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri, who admitted police officers had an attitude problem.
But Kemal played down Danuri's remarks, calling it "just talk". "He's just talking to repair the police's image," he said. "He only makes it seems their image is all they care about. What the community needs now is action."